As from today, you can now buy copies of Would Like to Meet from most good booksellers and also on Amazon. I really, really hope that you’ll enjoy it, if you do. And thank you – thankyou – for buying it, too.

It’s often underestimated how helpful book bloggers can be to authors and their books. Unpaid (and often unappreciated) they read advance reading copies (also called ARCs), and then write thoughtful, considered reviews and draw attention to books they’ve really enjoyed. They do it just for the love of reading, and because they want to share books they’ve enjoyed with other readers.

I’m very grateful to all the book bloggers who’ve taken the time to read and review my books.

My cousin-in-law (the lovely Jayne) just sent me some great news: Saturday magazine (The Daily Express) carried this small piece about “Would Like to Meet” on Saturday. Even better, they described the book as a ‘must-read’.

Just thought you guys might like to know that I’m doing a ‘blog tour’ about my new book soon.

I know it can seem a bit of a weird concept to ‘tour’ the internet talking about your books on other people’s blogs, but I really enjoyed it last time I tried it. That was when I did the blog tour for “Diary of an Unsmug Married”, and it was great – not only did I get to meet lots of really great book bloggers who shared my passion for books, but I also got to chat to their readers too.

I’m chuffed to bits to have been invited to join so many book bloggers this time around, and would like to thank them all for having me, in advance!

Here’s the itinerary for the blog tour for “Would Like to Meet”, and I really hope you’ll join me at one of my stops along the way.

I went to art school and have always been a very visual person – so I’m one of those people who always says “I see what you mean” instead of “I hear your point”. (Mind you, the seeing-rather-than-hearing thing may also have something to do with the fact that I’m partially deaf thanks to a particularly shouty constituent I encountered all too regularly in my last job.)

Anyway, this obsession with the visual means that I like to be able to “see” certain aspects of the book I’m writing as I go along, so that’s why I use Pinterest to help me keep all the images I collect in one place, and to share them with readers, too.

I moved around a lot as a child, or rather, my parents did, and I went with them. (No other choice when you’re a child.) Of all the places we lived after leaving my home town in Wales, one of my favourites was Warrington, which is full of really friendly people who reminded me of the Welsh. That’s why I was so thrilled when The Warrington Guardian interviewed me about my books.

You can read the full interview either by clicking on this picture, or via my media page.

The reviews from book bloggers have started coming in, and – as if to make up for my having a very bad working week due to my DIY-obsessed neighbour hammering even more than usual – the first review gives “Would Like to Meet” 10 out of 10! I’m SO chuffed. (And relieved.)

Many thanks to Tracey at The Reading Shed for reading and reviewing the book. You can read her full review here: https://thereadingshed.wordpress.com/2016/06/22/would-like-to-meet-by-polly-james/

It’s the moment I guess every author really dreads, or I do, anyway: when the first reviews of your new book start coming in.

Until that point, the only people who’ve read the manuscript that you’ve spent most of the previous year wrestling with are your agent and your editors – unless you’re one of those writers who shares your work with family and friends as you go along.

I’m not one of those, so the first inkling I ever have of whether my book’s going to appeal to anyone who wasn’t involved with publishing it is when someone at Avon Books’ PR company sends me a link to a review. Then I become overwhelmed with nausea and have to sit down for the next ten minutes until the panic starts to wear off. After that, I read the review, with bated breath and my fingers crossed.

That’s what I did first thing this morning, when I heard that not one, but two national newspapers had reviewed “Would Like to Meet” on the same day. Double the reviews caused double the nausea, followed by an extended period of sitting down and trying to get a grip.

Having sort-of done so, I read the first review, which was by Sara Lawrence at the Daily Mail. She really liked the book! (You can read the full review on my media page, or by following this link:

Then I opened today’s copy of the Sun. Would my luck hold out? I had yet another funny turn before I could face reading this next review, but again, Tania Hadley (the reviewer) liked the book. Cue one VERY happy writer. (For at least ten minutes, until the worrier part of me decided that something was bound to go horribly wrong very soon, since today had gone well so far. There’s no pleasing neurotics like me.)

Anyway, if you’d like to read the Sun review, there’s a scan of it below, and also on my media page.